SkyWest (NASDAQ:SKYW) Raised to Outperform at Raymond James

Raymond James upgraded shares of SkyWest (NASDAQ:SKYW) from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a research note issued to investors on Thursday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has $55.00 price target on the transportation company’s stock.

Several other research firms have also recently weighed in on SKYW. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of SkyWest in a report on Thursday, August 17th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded shares of SkyWest from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $46.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Thursday, June 15th. Finally, Evercore ISI increased their target price on shares of SkyWest from $38.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock an in-line rating in a research report on Monday, August 28th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $37.00.

SkyWest Stock Down 1.6 %

Shares of SKYW stock opened at $44.38 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 1.01. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $41.49 and its 200-day moving average is $31.19. The stock has a market cap of $1.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -634.00, a PEG ratio of 7.26 and a beta of 1.95. SkyWest has a 52-week low of $14.76 and a 52-week high of $46.07.

SkyWest (NASDAQ:SKYW) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, July 27th. The transportation company reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.46) by $0.81. The company had revenue of $725.64 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $707.75 million. SkyWest had a negative net margin of 0.19% and a positive return on equity of 1.82%. SkyWest’s quarterly revenue was down 9.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.07 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that SkyWest will post 0.38 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of SkyWest

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. boosted its position in shares of SkyWest by 0.9% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 8,432,804 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $186,955,000 after acquiring an additional 71,555 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in SkyWest by 4.4% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,929,452 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $96,413,000 after purchasing an additional 251,492 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in SkyWest by 1.9% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,375,623 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $97,386,000 after purchasing an additional 64,082 shares during the last quarter. Kopernik Global Investors LLC lifted its stake in SkyWest by 1.1% in the 1st quarter. Kopernik Global Investors LLC now owns 2,558,153 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $56,714,000 after purchasing an additional 26,845 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp lifted its stake in SkyWest by 14.4% in the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,442,697 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $70,472,000 after purchasing an additional 306,987 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.94% of the company’s stock.

About SkyWest

SkyWest, Inc is the holding company for two scheduled passenger airline operations and an aircraft leasing company. SkyWest’s airline companies provide commercial air service in cities throughout North America with nearly 3,000 daily flights carrying more than 53 million passengers annually. SkyWest Airlines operates through partnerships with United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines.